THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 371 



It is, however, more than probable that the different parts of 

 the brain have different offices. Its faculties are so various, that 

 it is impossible to imagine them possessed by the same portion. 

 The faculty for melody is perfectly different from the love of 

 offspring. If to suppose all parts of the brain are organs for all 

 faculties is difficult, the difficulty appears greater on reflecting 

 that in that case the whole brain would be concerned in every act 

 and feeling, or, if the whole brain is not thus constantly at work at 

 all things, that different parts would perform the very same offices 

 at different times, each part working in every kind of mental act 

 and feeling in its turn. Neither does the brain perform merely 

 one thing, as the whole liver performs the secretion of merely one 

 fluid bile ; nor is its structure the same throughout, like that 

 of the liver. 



The best authors hold that its various parts have various 

 offices b , and Gall proves that they have. 



Shakspeare makes Caliban say 



" I will have none on't : we shall lose our time, 

 And all be turned to barnacles, or to apes 

 With foreheads villainous low. Tempest, Act iv. sc. 1 . 



Homer gives the basest fellow who went to Troy, a conical head a miserable 

 development of the seat of the moral sentiments : 



og 5 avvp t/7ro 



Ilias, B. 



b " The brain is a very complicated organ," says Bonnet, " or rather an 

 assemblage of very different organs." (Palingengsie, t. i. p. 334.) Tissot contends 

 that every perception has different fibres. ((Euvres, t. iii. p. 33.) Cuvier says, 

 that " certain parts of the brain in all classes of animals are large or small ac- 

 cording to certain qualities of the animals." (Anatomie Compare, t. ii.) S6m_ 

 merring trusts that we shall one day find the particular seats of the different 

 orders of ideas. " Let the timid, therefore, take courage," says Dr. Georget, 

 in his admirable work upon the nervous system, " and, after the example of such 

 high authorities, fear not to commit the unpardonable crime of innovation, of 

 passing for cranioscopists, by admitting the plurality of the faculties and mental 

 organs of the brain, or at least by daring to examine the subject." (J)e la Phy- 

 siologic du Systeme Nerveux, et specialement du Cerveau, t. i. p. 126.) Gall's suc- 

 cessful reply to some very unjust observations made in this work, will be found 

 in his 8vo. edit. t. v. p. 488. sqq. Dr. Vimont repeats these, apparently in 

 ignorance that Gall bad fully replied in his small work ; and censures Gall 

 for having incorrectly said that Bonnet considered every cerebral fibre as having 

 a distinct function. Now Bonnet's words really are, "I thus consider every 



c c 3 



